


Leaves Your Fears Behind

by elrhiarhodan



Series: Paladin 'Verse [25]
Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, OT3, Schmoop, hospital stay, paladin 'verse, sick!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some good, old fashioned Hurt/Comfort.  Continues the story in <a href="http://elrhiarhodan.livejournal.com/59389.html">Hello, My Heart</a>. Neal has taken a bullet in the chest during an undercover operation, and Peter’s by his side during his recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves Your Fears Behind

It’s been three weeks since Stephen Corrig pointed that little mouse gun at him and fired. Three weeks of all the indignities that a modern hospital can inflict on a human being (the first and foremost being those hospital gowns that reveal everything to everybody). He’d endured much in the name of medical science, and the doctors and nurses (all sadists, each and every one of them, keep saying he’s going to be fine).

But Neal doesn’t feel fine. He’s weak, tired, and barely able to take a piss by himself (now they’ve finally taken the catheter out, thank goodness). He has no concentration - not for prime time drama and especially not for the inanity of daytime TV. He can barely make it through an article in the newspaper, and forget about anything as complex as The New Yorker. 

Moz doesn’t visit him too often – and that’s okay, the man’s had enough of hospitals to last him a lifetime (and more). But Neal has his cellphone, and Moz is a good conversationalist. He lets his friend rambles on, about this scheme or that cultural indignity, his speech peppered with quotations obscure and commonplace. He listens - usually with half an ear (because the other half of that ear and the other whole ear are sound asleep). Moz doesn’t need nor does he expect any actual responses from him. Moz is all too familiar with what it’s like to recover from a gunshot wound in the chest - and although the bullet they took out of him was closer to his heart (2 cm), he had less damage and a speedier recovery. 

He spends some time in the hospital solarium today - Elizabeth brings him another care basket – chicken soup and bendy straws (an old joke). They talk about his post-recovery options - she wants him to move into their house permanently, for once and for good. After all, they’ve exchanged vows, Neal wears their ring. The tracker’s been off for a while and Neal’s a full fledged employee of the FBI - not an agent, but an analyst, Peter’s asset but not his direct report. There is no reason why Neal can’t spend his recovery in the familiar comfort of their big bed.

Neal, on the other hand adamantly opposes the idea. Not that he doesn’t want to be with Peter and Elizabeth (his spouses, he joyfully calls them in the privacy of his head), it’s that he hates when they see him in anything less than perfect health.

Thankfully, Elizabeth backs off when she sees how tired he is, and she wheels him back to his room. His doctors are optimistic that he’ll be healthy enough to be released later this week, but they’ve said he’s going to need extensive rehab. And this is the basis of their battles - Neal feels that it will be easier on everyone if he checks into a care facility for a few weeks. Peter and Elizabeth don’t even consider that an option. 

As he’s getting back into bed, Elizabeth pinches his ass and he turns and grins at her. “I know why you want me back at your house - you are just insatiable, and the old man can’t keep up with your appetites.”

“You wish, mister. Peter’s in his prime - but you’ve been taking a toll on him.”

Elizabeth probably didn’t (he’s sure she didn’t) mean it the way it sounded, but Neal couldn’t help but feel guilty about the cost of his injury to their relationship.

“Give me a few weeks in rehab to recover. You and Peter can go on a long and much needed vacation, and when I get out - we’ll talk about the living arrangements, okay?”

“We are going nowhere without you - understand?” 

Neal smiles - he’ll talk to Moz about making travel plans for Peter and Elizabeth, but later maybe. Or tomorrow. A wave of exhaustion overtakes him, and if he doesn’t get some sleep now, he’ll probably start to cry.

Elizabeth pulls the covers up and briefly rests her small, warm palm against the wound. “Rest, love - and get well.”

He’s asleep before her kiss cools against his cheek.

Neal dreams – not in just color but in sound and light and shadow. He hears the small snap of sound the gun made before pain exploded inside him. He dreams of Peter, standing over him, standing silhouetted against the sun - is Peter on a bridge (the bridge – the Rialto) or is he on the street? A horn sounds - is that a siren or the signal of an approaching water bus? 

Neal is confused - underneath the clicking and the honking and the oddly muffled noises of nearby people, there’s a strange sound. It reminds him of the time he and Kate drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles, down US-1. They stop at almost every pull out between Monterrey and San Luis Obispo to admire the curve of the earth and the dragons dancing in the Pacific surf pounding against the rocks. At one of the stops, it sounds like there’s a crazy party on the beach below the cliffs - filled with oddly dissonant singing.

They look over the cliff, they are dizzy with the height and the sun and the sheer blueness of the ocean. They look down and see a colony of sea lions cavorting on the sand.

Neal is even more confused - is he in California or New York? He struggles against the ever present exhaustion - the on-going betrayal of his injured body and opens his eyes.

Peter is at his bedside, reading. His lips are moving and a sound is coming out. This is the noise that Neal, in his dream state had mistaken for the sea lions.

Peter is singing. 

Neal, fully awake and slightly horrified, listens carefully.

It’s the Beatles. Neal has never had any particular fondness for the Fab Four - but they don’t deserve what his lover’s doing to them.

_Here I stand head in hand_  
Turn my face to the wall  
If she's gone I can't go on  
Feelin' two-foot small 

_Everywhere people stare_  
Each and every day  
I can see them laugh at me  
And I hear them say 

Peter seems to hit a groove when he gets to the chorus...

_Hey you've got to hide your love away  
Hey you've got to hide your love away_

Neal groans, he can’t help himself, and Peter looks up. Those beloved eyes flash a little behind the bifocals, and Neal wants to groan again - for completely different reasons. As injured and weak as he is, those damn bifocals get him going. And while he knows he’s not quite ready for anything like that yet, Neal wonders if he’s going to have this reaction until he’s too old to get it up anymore, or if the glasses will be like perpetual Viagra.

Peter vacates the chair and stands over him, a guardian angel of the highest order, concern and love in every line of his face.

“Peter…” Neal tries to think of a way to get Peter to stop singing – particularly _that_ song. The sentiment in the chorus bothers him.

“What?”

“We don’t...you know.” 

“We don’t what?”

“Have to hide our love away. We don’t, you know.”

Peter’s hand is warm and comforting against his forehead. “Neal …”

Neal is fully awake and for the first time since he was shot, his mind is clear, even if his body is still exhausted. He realizes something too. “No, Peter. It’s time. And it’s not like everyone in the office doesn’t know that we’re together, now.” 

“I know…it’s just a song. I got an earworm.” Peter smiled and Neal reaches up to caress those lips. Peter presses a kiss into his palm.

“I’m being foolish, aren’t I?” There is no need to say anything more, to explain.

“Yeah. But I do understand.”

“El doesn’t.” This is the first time that Neal’s ever called her “El” – that he’s ever felt truly comfortable enough to use Peter’s nickname outside the privacy of his own head.

Peter drops the protective bars on the side of the bed, they separate him from Neal. He leans in close and steals a brief kiss.

“You’re wrong – she does. And it doesn’t matter. We love you, especially when you’re less than perfect.”

He laughs. “I’m rarely perfect.”

Peter runs a hand through his scalp, massaging it and Neal wants to arch his body like a cat into the caress, but it still hurts too damn much. 

“Fishing for compliments, Caffrey?”

He smiles. “Always.” As Peter rubs his fingers through Neal’s hair – it is a little greasy from the enforced bed rest, but Peter didn’t seem to mind, Neal finds himself sinking into a state of boneless contentment, a happiness that goes beyond the moment, something that he knows will endure against anything.

“I’ll come home with you.”

Peter smiles and kisses him. “For good...you are going to come home with us for good.”

“Yes.” Neal closes his eyes, all his fears, all the faults he saw within himself – the ones that said he shouldn’t, he couldn’t be loved, are finally left behind, like so much roadside litter.

__

FIN


End file.
